Why do I understand written French but not spoken French?

You understand written French but not spoken French because, in French, what you write and what you hear are often not the same thing. You pronounce fewer letters than you write, words stick together, and in speech, part of them gets swallowed.

I often see this gap in my students, from level A1 to level B1, whatever their native language. It's normal. In this article, I explain where it comes from, with examples, and then how we work on it in class.

"French people speak too fast"

That's what my students often tell me. And it's true: spoken French is fast.

But that's not the only reason. In French, we're greedy: we swallow our words. As a result, the sentence you read without difficulty on a page doesn't always sound like the one you hear.

So to understand spoken French, listening more slowly isn't enough. You need to learn to recognize the sound form of words, which is not their written form. Here are the four phenomena that create this gap.

1. Letters you write but don't pronounce

Written French has many silent letters, especially at the end of words.

petit, beaucoup, ils parlent

In petit, the final t is not pronounced. In beaucoup, neither is the p. And in ils parlent, the ending -ent is silent.

The result: in speech, il parle and ils parlent are pronounced exactly the same way. In writing, you can see right away whether there is one person or several. In speech, it's the context that tells you.

Another example:

Ils chantent. Il chante.

Two different sentences in writing, a single pronunciation in speech.

2. Words that stick together

In writing, each word is separated by a space. In speech, the spaces disappear. Two mechanisms stick words together.

Liaison

liaison¹pronouncing a final consonant that is normally silent, because the next word starts with a vowel makes a sound appear that you don't hear when the word is on its own.

les amis

On its own, les is pronounced "lé". But before amis, the s wakes up and is pronounced "z": you hear "lé-za-mi". If you look for the word amis in what you hear, you may not find it: you hear zami.

The same goes for:

vous avez → « vou-za-vé »

Enchaînement

With enchaînement²pronouncing the final consonant of a word together with the vowel of the next word, the last consonant of a word attaches itself to the next word.

il arrive → « i-la-riv »

elle aime → « è-lèm »

In speech, the boundary between words moves. You know il and arrive, but you hear "la-riv".

3. Sounds that get swallowed

This is the heart of what I call manger ses mots (eating your words). In everyday conversation, some sounds disappear.

The e often drops:

je ne sais pas → « je n'sais pas » → « j'sais pas »

The ne of the negation very often disappears in speech:

Je ne sais pas. → Je sais pas.

And sometimes, several words merge into a single block:

tu es → « t'es »

il y a → « y'a »

These forms are normal in speech. But they don't look like what you learned in writing. If you're expecting je ne sais pas, you won't recognize "j'sais pas".

4. In writing, you have time

When you read, you can reread a sentence, stop on a word, go back. You can see where each word begins and ends.

In speech, the sentence goes by only once. You don't have time to search.

Words that are close to your language help you a lot in writing, and less in speech:

information

In writing, this word is easy to recognize. But in speech, the ending -tion is pronounced "sion", and the stress falls at the end of the word. The same word, which you know, can go by without you recognizing it.

How I work on spoken French in class

To reduce this gap, you need to learn to connect what you hear with what you already know in writing. In class, I use several materials:

• audio documents;
• videos;
• conversation;
• reading aloud;
• dictation.

The dictée³an exercise in which you write down a text that is read aloud has a special place. I often offer it at the end of a lesson. It makes you recognize the words you hear and write them down: that's exactly the path between speech and writing. For me, it's very important from level A1 onwards.

The homework I give after the lesson can also include compréhension orale⁴the ability to understand a document you listen to.

To find out what a lesson is like, read my method.

What the conversation workshops bring

In a private lesson, you mainly hear my voice. In a conversation workshop, you hear other people.

The workshops let you talk with others and make yourself understood by people other than me. You hear everyone's pronunciation and accents. It's a way to better understand the language as it is spoken, with different voices.

Between lessons

Spoken French can also be practiced at home. I recommend podcasts, radio and series in French. They're chances to hear real French, with its liaisons, its enchaînements and its swallowed words.

Not sure what your level is yet? Check out the levels page. And if you have a question about the lessons, write to me from the contact page.